Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / On the Limits of Revenge

On the Limits of Revenge

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81Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    People want to hear about what we can do, not what we can’t do. That’s the challenge for morally inclined people.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    @efgoldman:

    The GOP is Congress is too cowardly too even vote on Syria. They are toothless tigers, and Dems need to point that out. Hopefully tonight.

  4. 4.

    Elizabelle

    del Toro knows the monsters are not just from imagination. What a humane set of tweets, and how appropriate.

    We just did a little candlelight vigil for the French, in my white bread neighborhood cul de sac. Lot of little kids there. They weren’t born for September 11 (one was a baby then), and this was a first vigil.

    A friend on Facebook mentioned these extremists are the Westboro Baptist Church of Muslims. Have to remind people of that. No religious wars, please.

  8. 8.

    Frank Wilhoit

    No.
    Let us not speak of the limits of revenge, but of the limits of humanity.
    The foremost of these is that there are no limits of revenge.
    What Sr. del Toro is saying is that he is above humanity. This may be true and it may be good, but if it is good, then it is a thing that could only be said to oneself.
    For the rest, the history of the past two centuries shows that humanity and revenge are synonymous.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: Perhaps it is. So sad.

    Pleasantly surprised suicide vests have not come to the US. Are we just fortunate so far? Is it logistics? Are they going for easier targets? (Facebook is full of the next day commando types — the terrorists aren’t here because they fear our armed populace. Is that true or more gun fantasy thinking?)

  15. 15.

    beltane

    @Elizabelle: The terrorists seem to have no problem operating in other parts of the world that are awash with guns. From a practical standpoint, it is simply harder to travel to North America without attracting the attention of law enforcement. In both of the recent attacks in Paris, it seems there were Belgian sleeper cells involved. Open borders within the EU won’t work if any of the member states are inadequately vigilant.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    I have a Facebook friend who took his young (6-7 yo?) son to Paris last year. The kid fell in love with the city, the people, the sights, sounds, and smells. He is devastated by what he has heard, can’t understand it, and his father is just completely chewed up having to explain evil to his child.

    Edit: And I don’t know how you’d do that, staying truthful while not putting any additional fear or anger on the child. Have no idea what my friend said to his boy, but he’s done a good job so far, so I expect he’ll find the right words. But gosh.

  17. 17.

    Renie

    Is this too naive of an idea? Stop the bombing by non Mid-East countries. Instead we should offer help in intelligence to the mid-east countries, and offer humanitarian aid especially to refugees.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    He may be able to explain it as analogous to bullies — the people who did this want to bully other people into doing things their way and don’t mind hurting them to do it. But it’s not a conversation I would want to have with a 6-year-old.

  20. 20.

    lamh36

    @anniekarni
    Sanders campaign manager says his team prevailed in talks with CBS and the debate format is not changing tonight

  21. 21.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Elizabelle: The current pattern for these people seems to be an American-style mass shooting followed by suicide vest detonation. Here, the preferred ending is suicide by cop. Probably just a matter of time before they go for the more dramatic finale.

  23. 23.

    p.a.

    @Omnes Omnibus: If there were no Soviet Union to fear, I wonder if our treatment of post war Germany and Japan would have been harsher?

    In my opinion, Reconstruction was too mild on the traitors.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    I refuse to believe that humans are merely an amalgamation of their basest impulses and it’s impossible for anyone to behave above the level of playground tit for tat.

    I also don’t think it was unusually saintly of Del Toro and his family to refuse to bribe the police into doing their jobs, which (as my husband pointed out when I read the tweets to him) was pretty much what they were asking for. After all, if the police had enough information to offer to kill the kidnappers for a price, doesn’t that also mean they knew who the kidnappers were and could have done more to free the hostages?

  25. 25.

    p.a.

    Ta-Nehisi Coates hasn’t posted at the Atlantic in a while. Is he back in France? I don’t do Twitter, so I don’t know what he’s doing or where.

  26. 26.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I have a friend who is about 40 I’ve known for over 20 yrs and she is absolutely in love with Paris. She went on her recent honeymoon there and her husband does business all over europe so she is devastated, like your friend’s son. There are no words that can explain or soothe this away.
    And like Senior del Toro the best we can do is push our humanity forward and revenge back. It’s all we have and I’m still amazed that after so many disastrous confrontations/wars/whatevers in the world so few seemed to have learned this.

  30. 30.

    beltane

    @Elizabelle: It’s also perfectly OK to teach children the truth: that human beings are capable of great violence and irrational cruelty. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of my father telling me about his own horrific childhood in occupied Europe with almost no gory detail spared. Rather than fill me with fear, this taught me to abhor violence and to regard other people with compassion.

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    @MomSense: My guess is TNC is living in Paris, but also busy with his book tour commitments.

    We wait to hear what he has to say about the events of last night.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    @beltane: Yes indeed.

    We are sure to see some essays as to what French (and other) parents decided to tell their children and students.

  34. 34.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Renie:
    A little bit. The places where we’re bombing… well, take Yemen for example. Yemen is in the midst of a civil war, with the revolutionaries holding a considerable stretch of territory and being both extremist Islam and virulently anti-West. When Al-Awlaki was bombed, he was in that rebel territory, in a rebel camp, and the rebels had said they would kill anyone who came to get him. Yemen’s government does not have the resources to take out the rebels, so they couldn’t get him and were happy to let us bomb the place.

    It doesn’t get much better anywhere else.

  35. 35.

    henqiguai

    @p.a.(#26):

    Ta-Nehisi Coates hasn’t posted at the Atlantic in a while. Is he back in France? I don’t do Twitter, so I don’t know what he’s doing or where.

    He’s been on [The Atlantic] Summit on Race and Justice in America, 12 November, as seen on CSPAN.

  36. 36.

    EZSmirkzz

    Since we are going to be inundated over the next six months with this story, and because Bad Astronomer needs some love, I’m linking up his post on skepticism, which linked to George Hrab TED talk on the subject.

    For those of you who may have seen, ” Sunset Limited” with Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, it clarifies the difference between the faith driven thinking of Mr. Jackson’s character and Mr. Jones’ character’s cynic driven thinking. and that of being a skeptic.

    It may also enlighten some of you as to my religious skepticism, while still maintaining my faith, while letting Jenny McCarthy off the evil human being hook. In that spirit, I offer it up to you, as we endure the rhetorical gymnastics of good and evil presented to us by the true believers, in and out of government and the media, in regard to the events in Paris.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    We helped rebuild shattered Germany and Japan. We had wise leaders then. Today, well, not so much.

    It was smart for so many reasons because it created jobs, provided income, provided consumers and guaranteed markets for us, and gave us huge influence. I wish we could rebuild here, too.

    I can’t help but think that providing hope in the form of good jobs, dignity, and respect would be as effective as anything in countering the fucked up allure of joining a death cult like IS.

  38. 38.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    That Bush and team invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, destroyed their government infrastructure, and then shrugged and said ‘Eh. Fuck it. Mission accomplished.’ is… I run out of words. That arrogance, stupidity, and callousness changed history, and much for the worse.

  44. 44.

    Cacti

    Ted Cruz has already said that we need to have bombing campaigns with more tolerance for civilian casualties.

    Republicans are terrible people.

  51. 51.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Over at the GOS, you have some calling for an invasion of Syria, OK I wonder how will we pay for this? Will we raise taxes on the Kochs? How many more vets coming home with wounds that will get dicked around by the VA?

  56. 56.

    Germy

    Anyone here watch Modern Family? Sofía Vergara’s brother was murdered in 1998 during a kidnapping attempt in Colombia.

  58. 58.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Frankensteinbeck: Dunno. An experts monitoring the IS comms channels on the web said on the BBC that he’s convinced that IS did it – the chatter changed after their announcement.

    Also PRI:

    ISIS on Saturday claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks and called them “the first of the storm.” The terror group released the claim in multiple languages, in the same channel in which it claimed responsibility for the crash of a plane over the Sinai Peninsula carrying Russian tourists two weeks ago.

    But even if IS was behind it, we and the French need to be thoughtful about how to respond.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    With del Toro, if was me I would prefer the courts to deal with the kidnappers, if the legal system is that messed up they, yes to the kidnappers not surviving the arrest. But not out of revenge, just to put a stop that kind it.

  64. 64.

    Germy

    We have CBS on. An hour special on the Paris attacks. Now and then, they cut to John Dickerson to discuss the upcoming debate.

    “And we WILL be watching” the lady anchor intones after his latest report from the empty debate stage.

  65. 65.

    MomSense

    @Goblue72:

    I realize you are talking about security but I don’t think we know enough about who these terrorists were yet. Belgium and France have enough homegrown radicals without importing more.

  66. 66.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Just tried to post a link to the Guardian but WP hates me I guess. I was reading a wonderful story about how the Isle of Bute is about to welcome 15 Syrian refugee families to the Island. They are a little concerned that the folks on the Island are going to “smother” the new arrivals with gifts of food, meals, clothes, advice, etc. They are excited about having a Church Hall social once the families have got situated so the refugees can introduce them to Syrian food. It is great story. As I said tried to link but it is on the Guardian’s page.

  69. 69.

    beltane

    @MomSense: In any case, it’s no insult to the Greeks to say that EU imposed austerity measures could pose a security risk. The Italian government threatened to hand out Schengen visas to anyone they pulled out of the Mediterranean unless they were given more funding. I’m not sure if the threat was carried out, but the burden of dealing with the influx of refugees has happened to fall on those nations most affected by austerity measures.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    Not trying to minimize the Paris deaths at all but looking up gun deaths in the US, the CDC said in 2013 we had 11,208 homicides by gun. That doesn’t count suicides, 21,175, or the non fatal injuries, 84,258, nor did it count legal shootings. The Guardian has a US police killing widget on their site that shows 993 to date for 2015. Not all of these are with guns, and where the information is available, which is most of them, they give details, and stats, by state.
    Tell me we don’t have domestic terrorism in this country.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    People on John Scalzi’s site are touting a Newsweek poll claiming that 16% of French citizens support ISIS.

    (edit: not actually a Newsweek poll, it’s by some Russian outfit, reported in Newsweek.)

    The strange thing is that, as far as I can tell, only something like 10% of French citizens are even Muslim (though numbers vary a lot). So that would mean that either this poll is bullshit, or France has millions of non-Muslim ISIS supporters.

  75. 75.

    seaboogie

    @Cacti:

    Ted Cruz has already said that we need to have bombing campaigns with more tolerance for civilian casualties.

    Republicans are terrible people.

    Maybe we should offer these armchair warriors a knife and a balaclava and urge them to go all fundy Biblical “eye for an eye” and walk their talk. Pretty sure they’d check their schedule and discover that they have to be in their constituency that week….fundraising with warrior talk.

  77. 77.

    seaboogie

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    You’d never get a cowardly sack of shit like Cruz anywhere NEAR an actual battlefield.

    Agreed. But it would be kind of fun to watch in a Python-esque sort of way, since he thinks he is the smart and can talk his nefarious way out of any paper bag. Try that with the Dems, muthafucka…we will fucking pwn your sorry, prevaricating -create a fantastical alternate reality ass. Even flaccid Dems will be “All Hell, naw…..”

  79. 79.

    Fred

    Take note that the police wanted money (and a pretty big bunch of it) to deliver their version of justice. Sick but not surprising.

  80. 80.

    D58826

    @Mike in NC: Well for the sake of the argument lets suppose Newts 20-30 armed theater goers might have made a difference and Paris would have been spared 129 dead. On the other hand they could ‘enjoy’ reading each day of the 5 year old shooting his 3 year old sister or some lonely soul killing 20 first graders.

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